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Talk:Poles
Shtetl Days It would be interesting to learn whether there were Pole-actors who ended up turning into Poles the way Jews did. The Jews seemed to become the role for explicitly religious reasons: They enjoyed the rituals and practices, and the meaning behind them. They specifically said they had to overlook all the superficial stuff like the clothing and the living situation to get into it. If the actors who played the Poles did the same, they wouldn't become Poles, they'd become Catholics. Now I suspect that Catholicism has been driven thoroughly underground in favor of German Christianity, at least in Europe, so it might be almost the only opportunity to practice a form of Christianity that hasn't been co-opted and corrupted. That could have its appeal, but there's a lot more about being a Pole that would need to rub off on the actors. The equivalents of what the Jew-ish actors described as superficial would be the defining characteristics of a uniquely Polish culture. Now it's certainly not unheard of for people who weren't born to it to fall in love with Polish food; in fact, it's a good deal more common than for a lot of cultures I could name. And with Poles nearing extinction, their cuisine is probably going with them. Often a conqueror will adopt certain recipes and cooking techniques from the conquered, but with the SS's obsession with cultural purity that would be dangerous in this case. So working Wawolnice becomes pretty much the only way to get good pierogis and kielbasa, but is that enough? I can eat and enjoy those things myself without developing a fondness for Polish culture. At the same time, there might be a certain fondness for the rustic living of a poor village in a poor country at a time when telephones and radio were barely more than novelties in far wealthier areas, and cell phones, Internet and so on are unheard of. In our own time a lot of people find a slower-paced, unplugged existence refreshing, at least temporarily. But that's not uniquely Polish, either. After all, Polish is first and foremost a nationality, and there are only two ways to cultivate one of those: Be born to it (in which case they'd be slaves in the back of beyond, not actors) and be naturalized (which can't happen if the Polish government doesn't exist). Turtle Fan 19:01, April 24, 2011 (UTC) :HT seemed to hint that the Poles were indeed doing just that, but I might be reading into things. ::I got the sense that it was very much an open question whether or not they were doing so. It was both very sad and a bit wryly amusing how easily the two groups fell into a tribal mentality. Those for whom it was just an acting gig shouldn't've taken it so seriously, and those who were rediscovering forbidden ancient practices should have felt a certain solidarity. Turtle Fan 03:58, April 25, 2011 (UTC) :Also, I don't think you addressed the issue of language, which I submit would be the firmest glue holding together the "new" Poles. This would be the fastest way they could distinguish themselves from their former German identities. Relgion and other cultural practices would play their part. It's not terribly hard to imagine a "Polish" couple doing many of the same things we saw Veit and Kristi do: speak Polish at home "so as not to lose the language", say prayers over dinner, go meatless on Fridays during Lent. So long as they could speak Polish, they could "feel" Polish. TR 02:16, April 25, 2011 (UTC) ::Speaking Polish, practicing Catholicism--It would have been pre-Vatican II, so meatless Fridays all year round except the week of Christmas, and fasting throughout Lent, though the latter would probably have been relaxed because it's pretty hard to hide the effects of so arduous a practice--These are still just cobbling together a bunch of similarities with Poles. If I lived in an area with no Koreans, but cooked Korean dishes as best I could and peppered my speech with Konglish as I did when I first moved back to the states, I doubt I could fool myself into thinking I'd become a Korean, just a person with a fondness for their culture and perhaps a bitterness at historical injustices they'd suffered. Being Polish and being Jewish just aren't the same; certainly not the way HT sold them. Turtle Fan 03:58, April 25, 2011 (UTC)